1. Tomorrow is the Persky recall election. If you live in Santa Clara county, I hope you vote no.
A successful recall will lead judges to impose tougher sanctions. And the evidence is clear: this won’t make us safer, and the impact will be racially disparate.
A successful recall will lead judges to impose tougher sanctions. And the evidence is clear: this won’t make us safer, and the impact will be racially disparate.
2. Tougher sanctions do not reduce crime. The evidence on this is long and solid. Here’s a good, comprehensive summary: openphilanthropy.org/blog/impact-in…
3. It’s surely true that we sanction sex assaults relatively less than comparable non-sex assaults (tho Turner’s life-time registration is no small thing).
Our goal, however, should be to achieve parity by sentencing everyone LESS, not MORE.
Our goal, however, should be to achieve parity by sentencing everyone LESS, not MORE.
4. And while the recall is framed as an attack on treating those with privilege better, (1) there’s no evidence of such bias in Persky’s sentencing (siliconvalleydebug.org/stories/women-…), and (2) the fact is that most defendants facing nervous judges will be people of color.
5. Like every punitive policy, whatever the framing of the recall, its costs will be disproportionately borne by those who disproportionately appear in front of judges: poor people of color.
6. The Persky Recall is the direct descendant of the Willie Horton ad, a single, decontextualized case used to inflame people’s anger about a “soft-on-crime” system.
That this time it is liberals making the claims shows how deeply bipartisan our punitiveness is.
That this time it is liberals making the claims shows how deeply bipartisan our punitiveness is.
7. The recall effort has already scared legislators into passing new mandatory minimums. And even if recalls are rare, if it succeeds it will make judges more concerned about their next retention election. Why take any risk?
8. The Persky recall effort shows how vulnerable and tentative genuine criminal justice reform remains.
Our instincts are always to punish more, to define “equal treatment” as treating all people and crimes equally harshly.
This is simply bad policy.
Our instincts are always to punish more, to define “equal treatment” as treating all people and crimes equally harshly.
This is simply bad policy.
9. So if anyone here can vote in Santa Clara tomorrow, I ask that you vote no for the recall. Even if you disagree with the Turner sentence, the recall effort risks serious collateral costs that can’t be ignored.
